A Lovely Letter From Susan

This letter from Susan made my day:

Hello Donny,

I’m Susan and I’m a college student from Louisiana. I’m emailing you to give you my thanks for creating your online book, Vietnamese Typography.

How I found your webpage was accidental so I’ll explain it to you. I’m a Vietnamese-American and my parents were refugees from Vietnam. They worked hard for me in so many ways, one of them being providing me with the tools to learn Vietnamese from a young age so I could be as fluent as possible. Watching educational videos from Thế Hệ Trẻ, going to Sunday School at my Vietnamese church, attending summer school for even further learning, and talking with my extended family are some examples of how I learned to read, write, and speak so much Vietnamese as an American-born.

Now fast forward to June 2019. My boyfriend, a Filipino-Canadian, has requested that I teach him how to read Vietnamese. He searched up some alphabet charts while I went to find some sort of guide to teach him about dấu. Your website appeared first on my Google search. Initially, I was completely unaware that this site was meant to help typographers, as the Google search only directed me towards the “Tone Marks” page. Upon further reading though, I can see that this site offers the utmost respect to our language and simultaneously teaches typographers how to create optimum designs for its use on the screen. My boyfriend casually remarked that he wanted to know the history of the Vietnamese language. I couldn’t impart such knowledge because I was never taught about it, and yet, there is a chapter dedicated to this subject readily available on your website. This is a wholesome page.

I’ve also reviewed your portfolio website. Your work is beautiful and your passion for our language is quite inspiring. I have never seen this sort of appreciation for Vietnamese by a Vietnamese person before. I’m glad to have found Vietnamese Typography and I’ve donated $5 via the support page. I wish you all the best, Donny.

Keep up the good work,
Susan

My response to Susan:

Dear Susan,

Thank you for supporting my Vietnamese Typography book. Furthermore, I appreciate your wonderful story. I am glad that your boyfriend wanted to learn about our beautiful language. When someone is willing to go that far for you, it’s true love. Congratulations!

My hat off to your parents. You probably didn’t appreciate their effort then, but you must be pleased now that they had instilled Vietnamese into you. I am encouraging my kids to learn Vietnamese as well and it is not easy; therefore, I understand and respect what they had done for you.

Reading your letter has confirmed that I made the right decision, which was to make this publication online for free. I am happy that it has reached you.

Thank you,

Donny Truong